Liquor
by Stratagem
Summary: In which Cassie gets drunk and rants about Kira while Nick attempts to take care of her.


Disclaimer: I don't own Push, though I wouldn't mind if I did. ^_^

A/N: Just watched the movie again and got rather psyched about it. I want to write a long story, but I'm traveling for the next two weeks, so I thought I would post a blurb, write an outline and then start my longer story when I get back! So enjoy my second blurb, set soon after the movie.

Liquor

Cassie smelled like the streets of Dublin, sweaty men and liquor. Nick groaned. He never should have taken a potential alcoholic teenager to a place where you could hardly walk to the corner without stumbling into a pub.

"Look, I understand—"

"No." Cynical laughter. The swirl of dark liquid in a large, clear bottle. A lopsided scowl that threatened a grin before deepening into frustration. "You, you don't. You just don't, Nick. It's all in the air, and I can't draw." She flopped backwards onto her twin hotel bed and stared up at the ceiling, blue eyes wide. "You actually ate a bullet this time. Took one right in the mouth. Big fat guy shot you with your own gun, very poetic."

"Cassie, shut up," Nick said, rolling his eyes. Whenever his rainbow-headed moppet decided that her visions weren't clear enough, she took to the bottle, like drinking herself into a stupor was going to help anything. Maybe it made her feel closer to her mother or something, but Nick was tired of dealing with drunken Cassie. She always got particularly snippy when she was like this.

"Why? This is, I don't know, a very fun way to go," Cassie said, "Better than getting strangled by piano wire."

Nick walked over and grabbed one of her feet. She was wearing a ridiculous pair of combat boots she had bought at a thrift store. He quickly unlaced one and was working on the other when she suddenly sat up, her eyes wide. "If I can't draw, do we die faster?"

"No, we're just spared arguing over your scribbling," Nick said. He narrowed his eyes at her. "What exactly were you drinking?"

Cassie did that half-lidded glare that told him he was a moron. "Bottle's there." She gestured and laid back on the bed. "It's got something to do with yellow chairs, I know, but I can't see the people in the chairs."

"Maybe there aren't people in the chairs." What the hell was this? He stared at the homemade label on the bottle. What was she drinking, motor oil?

"There are people, dope," she said. She lifted one arm and pointed at the wall without looking. "Your last word is errg. Manly." Her arm dropped, and she rolled over onto her stomach. "I can't see them. They're people and chairs and waves."

"Sounds like you just want a vacation at the beach," Nick teased, but suddenly Cassie was up off the bed, her eyes blazing through the dull alcohol.

"A vacation?" Cassie threw her arms into the air. "Oh, yes, a vacation! When my mom is enslaved to Division and the whole psychic world is going to pot, I want a vacation!" She glared at him. "We don't get vacations, Nick. We get dead."

"I think that's grammically incorrect."

"You said grammatically wrong."

"Aren't you just the smartest drunk kid on the planet?" He pushed on her shoulders, which sent her back onto the bed again, and unlike a Teeter-Totter, she didn't pop back up again. Instead, she glared at the ceiling while he went to work untying her other boot which happened to have an enormous knot in it. As usual, she started in on her Anti-Kira Rant. Every time she pulled this shenanigan, she ended up fussing about Kira. This time was no different.

"You and Kira have evil Pusher babies. They kill you."

"Not true."

"You and Kira take over the world."

"Again, not true."

"Kira has evil Pusher babies with some guy named Phillip. They kill you, really horrifically too, and then take over the world."

"Cassie."

"I'm just telling you what I saw," she snapped, glaring at him before she flipped over onto her stomach, pulling the shoe out of his hands. Nick narrowed his eyes and Moved her, turning her back over with a simple thought.

"No, you're just pissed, and the object of your pissed-ness is always Kira. So you tell me every tiny possible future that ends in something bad for me when I'm with her."

"Nuh-uh." She smirked. "Sometimes it's you."

"That's so much better." He yanked off her second boot and tossed it next to the first. When he turned back around, Cassie was sprawled out on the bed, her eyes closed. Moody… He grabbed the blanket from his bed and tossed it over her since she was on top of hers. Maybe she would be less volatile in the morning.

"Get some sleep," he said, patting her shoulder, feeling drained from arguing with her.

"Fine…" She yawned and snuggled into the pillows, looking, well, almost adorable for a moment. Nick rubbed her back gently and stood up, ready to get in bed himself.

Cassie shifted. "Just so you know Kira Pushes you into walking over a cliff."

"Cassie!"


End file.
